


(Have Yourself) A Very Merry Gansey

by winterbone



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Consensual, Drunken Kissing, First Kiss, M/M, adansey, cosy cosy bbys, my first contribition to adansey hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5332553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterbone/pseuds/winterbone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"At such close proximity he can no longer see the Christmas lights. At such close proximity Gansey asserts himself as Adam's whole world."</p><p>Adam stays with Gansey for Christmas. Gansey gathers some drunken courage and takes it slow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Have Yourself) A Very Merry Gansey

**Author's Note:**

> inspiration; glasses, merry christmas and the national's song 'slow show'.
> 
> a/n; my first adansey fic. pre-canon. a merry little semi-fluff-fest. there's a tiny bit of angst floating around too. this might end up being a more explicit two-part, let me know if i should continue!

Gansey's glasses are askew. In the incandescent twinkling light of the parlour's Christmas tree and the flames of the open fire warming the hearth, a galaxy swirls across the lenses, all rich supernovas and merry drunken stars. 

Adam tries to avoid staring at it. Manages to do a pretty good job considering the circumstance. Because Gansey's head has somehow worked its way onto his lap.

“God, that's better. Those contacts were killing me.” Gansey rubs an eye that looks a bit pink around the edges. A bit puffy on the lid. 

But Adam reckons that's more fault of the empty champagne bottle and pair of crystal glasses currently clustered at their feet, by the side of the sofa, than anything to do with the contacts. 

Because the Gansey family certainly know how to throw a party. Especially when it's Christmas. And this evening had been no exception, Adam had to admit. Even if at points he _had_ felt a little awkward. Even if he _had_ felt like a misfit among the talk of elegant cars and the caviar and the suits that cost more than his parents double-wide in the trailer park. 

Even if Gansey did have to show him the correct way to hold a champagne flute. _Twice._

“Thanks for coming, by the way,” Gansey goes on, voice a half yawn, mumbling with what Adam deems alcohol induced exhaustion in his throat, “I'm not sure I would have gotten through it without you, Parrish. If _one more person_ had mentioned that my Christmas present should be a new car, I could not have been held responsible for what I might have done...” 

Glancing down, Adam watches Gansey's lips go thin and the way his eyebrows pull together in a familiar scowl. It's a look that always happens to grace his face whenever someone insults his blistering orange Camaro.

Adam exhales a laugh through his nose. “My pleasure.” He grins. 

The movement of his facial muscles, however, elicit an unwelcome ache, and Adam is instantly reminded of the green and yellow smudging on his left cheek, remnants of a once nasty bruise that's been taking a frustratingly long time to fade. 

He knows Gansey, ever articulate, ever collected, ever capable, doesn't really need anyone's back-up – _especially not his_. And he knows Gansey, ever protective, ever compassionate, ever concerned, probably only invited him because he wanted to get him away from his dad for a night or two. But relaxed on a pleasant buzz of expensive champagne and fireside warmth at the Gansey family mansion, Adam doesn't mind going along with his friend's ulterior motives for a while. _For once._

Adam doesn't mind pretending the way Gansey _needs_ him is real. Adam doesn't mind ignoring the subtext ghosting ever so quietly below the surface of the proposed truth. Not when Gansey's dark ruffle haired head is a soothing weight in his lap, and not when the reflection in Gansey's glasses lights up his eyes like stars.

“That suit looks good on you,” Gansey again. Spread eagled on his back across the sofa, Gansey's last fragile shreds of shame and tact disappeared several drinks ago, and he reaches up to fiddle absently with a button on Adam's waist coat, apparently completely blind to how it might look.

“It does?” Adam tenses. It's weird when Gansey compliments him. It always results in an odd pain behind his breastbone. As though there's something trapped in there and it's swollen right up.

Gansey makes a small noise of appreciation. His eyes lift over the thin rim of his spectacles. “You should wear one more often. You look a damn sight better than you do in that god awful Coca Cola t-shirt,” he says. Though the growing smirk accompanying the comment abruptly stops when Gansey clearly remembers that _this_ suit of Adam's is only rented and paying for it took Adam three months of frantic saving up. “I mean... I didn't mean... I just...” 

Adam sees him try to back pedal. Sees the familiar colourless expression of _'oh shit, I fucked up'_. And he's not sure if he's ever thought of Gansey's ignorance as _endearing_ before.

Not until now.

“It's fine,” he tells him. Because Adam's sensitive but not _that_ sensitive. And Gansey's offended _Gansey_ , more than anyone else. “It doesn't matter. I know what you meant.”

The line pulling Gansey's mouth tight immediately slackens. Glistening lips part into a lopsided grin, all flash of tongue and flash of tooth. 

Adam's hands, locked together in a safe barrier between his crotch and Gansey's mouth, twitch once, before clenching hard.

“Bow tie's looking a bit sorry for itself, though,” Gansey goes on with confidence renewed. He reaches up and Adam tilts down his chin, watching him rearrange the bow tie that's gone as wonky as his friend's smile. “How many drinks has it had? It looks almost as drunk as you.”

“So it looks like _you_ , then.” Adam gives Gansey a nod. Because Adam's still a stomach-full away from being anywhere close to drunk. He'd only accepted the champagne because it's Christmas and because it's Gansey. 

And he thinks if he _is_ drunk then he's probably drunk on _Gansey_ and his stupid glasses and stupid car.

Gansey snorts. “Parrish, how _dare_ you insinuate I might be drunk.” He wafts a dismissive hand and pretends to look a bit hurt, but the affect is quite spoiled by grin still pulling at one side of his lips. “ _Lynch_ gets drunk. Lynch is the _very definition_ of drunk. Not me, though. _Merry_ , is the correct adjective I believe you're searching for, if you'd like to assign my mental state an accurate description right now.”

Gansey crosses his arms over a puffed up chest and Adam's not entirely certain if Gansey's being funny on purpose or being funny by accident – sometimes it can be hard to tell, sometimes they're exactly the same thing – but either way it makes him laugh. 

“I wasn't _insinuating_. I was stating,” through a chest full of soft chuckles, he manages to respond, “but fine. 'Merry' it is then. If the Gansey definition of 'merry' is _drunk-enough-to-shove-my-head-into-my-friend's-crotch-without-permission_ , then I'll call you 'merry' all you want.”

Adam isn't really aware of the implications of what he's just said until his laughter dies into silence and he realises Gansey is dead quiet. The smirk's gone again. But at this angle and with the lights glinting across the surface of his friend's glasses, Gansey's expression is something Adam can't quite understand. 

It's thoughtful, somehow. But not thoughtful in a 're-considering' way like when he accidentally offends someone and tries to work out how. And not thoughtful in the determined, studious way, like when he's out tramping through grassy fields in search of energy spikes, or hunched over his notebook scrawling love notes to Glendower.

It's thoughtful in a way Adam has never seen before. And it's a thoughtfulness that is directed entirely at Adam.

Adam suddenly becomes very aware of his own heartbeat. Aware of the way he doesn't know what to do with his clasped tight hands. Aware of the way the rental suit, when compared next to Gansey who wears his perfectly without effort, doesn't look quite as right as it did in the store. 

Feeling self-conscious, he diverts his gaze, makes it his duty to look everywhere in the room except for at Gansey – Gansey, who's laid in his lap, Gansey, who's head's so close to his hands Adam can feel the brambly strands of his hair tickling his knuckles, Gansey, who's drunk as a skunk and studying him hard. 

It's Gansey's voice that draws Adam's eyes back.

Quiet. Excruciatingly polite this time. Clearly he is being very careful with his choice of words. “Is it... a _problem_?”

And Adam knows at once that they're no longer speaking about alcohol consumption. And Adam wonders at once if there was ever a moment when they ever really _were_.

He tries to swallow the lump that's appeared in his throat, but it won't go down. His cheeks and his chest and his palms feel hot. For a long, agonising moment, Adam struggles to formulate, not just words, but any sort of clear coherent thought. 

Then, “No...” and his voice sounds strange, distant somehow, like it's no longer his own.

Because Adam doesn't mind this. Here, now, at this very moment, with hot flames crackling in the winter hearth and old bruises fading on his arms, Gansey in his lap isn't a problem at all.

Gansey moves then, and Adam wonders for a brief, heart stopping, second if he actually said 'yes' instead of 'no'. Because the way Gansey pulls himself up makes it looks as though he's about to leave, and Adam's fingers twitch as though in preparation to capture his friend's sleeve. Until Gansey suddenly turns sharply and clambers onto Adam's lap, swings a leg over either side of Adam's body and perches himself down, face-to-face, on Adam's thighs.

Heart still lodged somewhere between his tonsils, Adam shoots a instinctive worried glance at the living room door. The party finished a little over an hour ago, but Gansey's parents are still pottering around somewhere and Adam's pretty sure the faraway clink of glass he can hear is Helen in the kitchen evacuating the contents of a bottle.

On his lap, Gansey is warm. All heavy heat through trouser suits. And now that the flames flicker over the skilled slope of his shoulders and the Christmas tree lights flash a multi-coloured halo around his head, Adam can see the wanting look in Gansey's eyes – half fascination, half hunger – and it reminds him of how Gansey looks whenever someone mentions waking Glendower.

Then Gansey's hands, summer tanned with urgent obsession, are suddenly touching Adam's, slowly peeling them apart. And he's pulling them away from one another with such careful consideration it makes Adam's head spin. 

His own palms are sweaty from where they've been nervously gripped together, but Gansey's palms are not. Gansey's hands are like a dry burn. His fingers scorching, like touching soft, sunburnt earth.

“And this?” Gansey asks, and he threads his fingers through the spaces between Adam's until their hands are entwined and interlocked. They fit as perfect as pieces of a puzzle. A meeting of two broken halves. “Is _this_ a problem?”

Between this moment and the last, Adam's words have gone astray again, and all he can manage is a small shake of his head. 

_No. No, he doesn't think so._

Inside his chest, his heart is feather light. Further down, his stomach is doing weird acrobatic flips. Even lower, something feels as though it's been sparked with a match.

Gansey manoeuvres until he has Adam's hands pressed against the sofa back, one on either side of his head. His movements aren't forceful or weighted and there's no urgency in them at all. Everything is careful consideration accompanied with a questioning look as Gansey leans in close. He smells fresher than anything Adam has ever smelled before.

Adam licks his lips. 

At such close proximity he can no longer see the Christmas lights. At such close proximity Gansey asserts himself as Adam's whole world.

And as they pause, perhaps hesitating, Adam wonders if Gansey is about to kiss him. Wonders if Gansey has been wanting to kiss him for a long time, or if Gansey's only just decided on it now. Wonders if the decision was made in sobriety, or if Gansey wants to kiss him only because he's drunk. 

Adam thinks they should probably clarify their personal standing on the matter first.

“Gans--” He starts, but stops. Because Gansey's lips are already hovering mere millimetres away from his own and when Adam draws a breath, he can taste the mint that is so distinctly _Gansey_ , tingling on the tip of his own tongue.

Gansey makes a quiet noise that Adam translates as either a 'huh?' or a 'what?', but he doesn't pull back. 

And when Adam can't speak, when he simply cannot say any more, Gansey speaks for the both of them, the breath of his words all clean innocence and fizzy herbal warmth, “This isn't a problem, _is it_?”

Even a simple shake of the head suddenly feels impossible. Adam can feel the world falling away from him. Feel the keys to his muscles locking up. The obstruction crushing his vocal chords grows like a cancer in his throat. Because Adam's not good with decisions. Doesn't ever seem to be able to make the right choice. Every time Adam decides on something it's as though the whole universe turns itself inside out and upside down straight afterwards, as though his sole purpose in life is to _hurt_.

And so Adam doesn't want to be the one held responsible. Feels perhaps it won't end in an inevitable mistake if he leaves the decision making to Richard Campbell Gansey III. 

And so Adam's only hope is to cling feverishly to the faith that Gansey isn't too drunk to read the expression in his eyes. To see the frozen indecision. To hear the deafening unspoken _'you first'_. 

Conversation without words is one of their greatest arts. But considering the events of the party, Adam can only pray that the tide of champagne Gansey consumed hasn't flooded that particular crevice of his friend's brilliant mind and callously washed all the observational talent out. 

The delay on Gansey's part starts to lodge a seed of doubt.

Until, “ _No...? I didn't think so..._ ” and with the exhale of his mint-fresh whisper still trapped in the space between them, Gansey's lips settle themselves quite pleasantly over the little hesitant 'o' of Adam's mouth.


End file.
